29 Jun Reclaiming My Joie de Vivre (Part 3)

It never ceases to amaze me—the spiritual lessons the Lord teaches me through the practical realities of everyday life. For instance, home-purging. I’ve written about this before, and here I go again. What I know for sure is that home-purging is not a one-and-done thing; it’s an ongoing way of life if you want to stay on top of the accumulation of things and excess that clutter up your home. And what I also know for sure is that ridding my home of the accumulation of stuff brings joie to my vivre, or joy to my life.

So, here I am, at it again. This was going to be a two-month summer project that suddenly turned into a two-week rapid deep dive of uncovering and ridding all the stuff. I stepped on the gas because our middle granddaughter, lovely Adair—the one who spent last summer with us doing an internship in Dallas—has taken a job here and is living with us again until she moves in with her new roomies in August. We are absolutely thrilled to have her in Big D!

Purging the Joie Stealers from My Vivre

Two weeks before Adair arrived, I got myself into high gear and began the project; I mean seriously peering into brown cardboard boxes that had been relegated to the back of closets; boxes I had no idea were even there much less what was in them. Things I’d packed up years ago and had forgotten about. It was a total exposure of what had been buried in my house for years—in containers, drawers, closets, cabinets… things shoved into dark corners that haven’t seen the light of day in years. You know how it goes; we put off dealing with our stuff, declaring with Scarlett O’Hara, “I’ll think about it tomorrow…” And “tomorrow” turns into 8 years.

Our spiritual house—our heart, is a lot like that.

In delightful moments over the past months the Lord has been teaching me beautiful things in the process of reclaiming my joie de vivre, the joy of life. He’s also taught me, in bittersweet moments, about the other things; the culprits that I’ve allowed to steal my joy. The stuff that’s been crammed into the dark corners of my heart; things I’ve packed away and forgotten to deal with—or in some cases, flatly ignored.

Funny how often life imitates heart. We can go on a blue streak purging, organizing or redecorating our physical home so that it looks pristine and uncluttered, while our heart—Christ’s home—is in a complete shambles; an utter mess, crammed with stuff that hasn’t seen the forgiving, healing, restoring light of Christ in decades. Stuff we’ve knowingly held onto and harbored, and stuff we’ve completely forgotten about. Nevertheless, it’s stuff…sin stuff; and it starts to rot and stink with the odor of hurts and offenses; it’s developed the thick black mold of self-pity, bitterness, resentment, and unforgiveness. And nothing will suck you dry and steal the joie from your vivre like a bunch of long-held emotional (excuse me) crap that has been stuffed inside your heart. It’s a joy-stealer for sure, and it’s unhealthy.

While we may fool ourselves in disregarding the clutter in our heart, we don’t fool God. He sees what’s there, because that’s where He lives; and He loves us too much to keep living with a cluttered heart.

Confession Brings Joie to our Vivre

So what’s the answer to the accumulation of emotional stuff that’s stealing our joy?

Confession is the answer.

Since joy is a God-thing, the only person that can affect your joy is God, and your relationship with Him. Confession is the key to letting the joy of the Lord flood your life. Hallelujah! We get to confess!

Confession is a beautiful tenet of our faith that God has graciously granted to each of us in Christ, and it’s vital to keeping ourselves in right alignment with the Him. My relationship with the Lord is the most important thing in my life, and I want to keep my heart in line with His, so I try to put into practice daily what He tells me will keep my heart clean and clear and open to Him.

Confession is “agreeing with God over the matter of sin in my life.” However, I must first give God the key to my heart, and ask Him to have His way in me; to search me and let Him shine the light of His loving Word into the recesses of my heart and show me what’s there. It’s the best hard thing you can do for yourself. I need it. You need it. We’ve just gotta do it!

Ask the Lord to do that for you, and to grant you the grace and courage to admit to what He shows you in your heart; to allow the scalpel of His Truth to excise the tumors of bitterness, envy, resentment, self-righteousness, unforgiveness, etc; and extract the poison venom of the snake bite of offense. It’s vital for the thriving of our lives, and the fullness of our joy (see Psalm 51:12).

Something to Think About

The Bait of Satan

Twenty-one years ago my BFF, Patrish, sent me a book she’d just discovered: The Bait of Satan: Living Free from the Deadly Trap of Offense, by John Bevere. It was so random; the book had just come out; neither of us knew anything about it or the author; she said the title intrigued her and felt the Holy Spirit nudge her to get me a copy, too. Only a BFF would share a book like this. So, I read it. And I read it again. And I’ve been rereading it for the past 21 years because, as Jesus said, offenses will come (Matthew 18:7; Luke 17:1)… so I’d better learn how to make quick work of confessing them and asking for forgiveness.

How? By asking God to search my own heart (Psalm 139:23-24) and expose to me what’s there. As Paul Tripp writes,

“Here’s how confession works. You cannot confess what you haven’t grieved, you can’t grieve what you do not see, and you cannot repent of what you have not confessed. So one of the most important operations of God’s grace is to give us eyes to see our sin and hearts that are willing to confess it.” ~ New Morning Mercies, June 15th

Lord, show me my sin, give me grace to own it, and godly sorrow over having offended You above all. Please forgive me, and renew a right spirit within me. In the saving Name of Jesus, I ask this. Amen.

Here’s what I’ve learned and tried to put in practice daily, and I’m just passing it along to you, my friend:

• First, take the time daily to clean your heart, Christ’s home.
• Start by confessing and surrendering your pride daily. Nothing blocks your connection with God, blocks your joy, and keeps you tangled in a mess like pride. The struggle is real. Trust me! Confess the sin of pride every day.
• Ask God to search your heart, and ask Him for grace to see your sin, and for the wisdom to understand it.
• Ask for grace to own it…to admit to what God shows you, and the faith to walk the path of obedience in confession, repentance, and forgiveness—and to work toward restoration where relationships are involved, if possible.
• Ask the Holy Spirit to keep a spirit of humility on you—daily. Humility invites God’s presence and provision— He gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5-6; James 4:6-7).
• Receive the gift of God’s loving grace and forgiveness to you, and move on. Remember, God is for you (Romans 8:31).
• Keep at it! Just like tidying up your home or brushing your teeth…make examining your heart and confessing your sin a daily habit.

John Bevere writes,

“Do not be afraid to allow the Holy Spirit to reveal any unforgiveness or bitterness. The longer you hide it, the stronger it will become and the harder your heart will grow. Stay tenderhearted. How? Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. Ephesians 4:31-32” ~ The Bait of Satan

One More Thing

In one of my all-time favorite little books, My Heart Christ’s Home, Robert Boyd Munger writes of what it would be like to have Jesus come to the home of your heart as we move room by room through the house of his life, considering what Christ desires for us. He writes of the “Hall Closet”- locked and stuffed full of smelling, awful accumulated emotional and spiritual garbage, as Jesus asks him to “Give me the key to the closet…”

“I’ll give you the key…I said sadly, “but you’ll have to open the closet and clean it out. I haven’t the strength to do it.

“l know,” Jesus said. “Just authorize me to handle that closet and I will.” So, with trembling fingers, I passed the key over to him. He took it from my hand, walked over to the door, opened it, entered it, took out the putrefying stuff that was rotting there and threw it all away. Then he cleansed the closet, painted it and fixed it up all in a moment’s time. Immediately a fresh, fragrant breeze swept through the house. The whole atmosphere changed. What release and victory to have that dead thing out of my life!”

Here’s the thing: Confession of the sin in our heart gives Jesus the key to deal with what’s inside, to clean it up and fill it with the joy to live freely, unencumbered by the joy-stealers. And what’s more— God not only hears our confession, He blesses it! (Joel 2:11-13). THAT brings me joy… the joie de vivre that Jesus died to give me! May our joy always be full in him! (John 15:11).

Additional Reading: Psalm 139:1-6, 23-24; Psalm 51

Until next week— don’t forget that you are greatly and dearly loved by The King! And let’s live our beautiful, ordinary lives like women who believe it…with joy!

I love you,
xo – P♥️